You may want to consider the canoe — or the ark — for your Thursday morning commute southeast of the metro.

Our incoming April rainstorm is feeding waves of showers with some embedded thundershowers sweeping across Minnesota overnight into Thursday morning. Locally heavy downpours will roll through some areas overnight and just in time for Thursday’s morning commute. It looks like the heaviest rains could clip the southeast metro as they favor southeast Minnesota and western Wisconsin.

The Mother Low responsible for the mostly welcome April soaking chugs east Thursday.

The system looks to be an efficient rainfall producer with some 1-inch to 2-inch totals. That’s good news for Minnesota’s borderline drought. A brilliant weekend last weekend with much needed rain coming during the middle of the week? Priceless.

On the colder northern edge of the precip shield, it will be cold enough for some snow in the Arrowhead. Yes, spring sometimes comes for good in early June up north.

Bottom Line? Waves of rain continue overnight into Thursday.The morning commute looks very wet, and there may still be some rain around for the afternoon commute Thursday. Scattered thunder and local downpours may produce some locally heavy totals. Showers should taper off from west to east Thursday late afternoon.

The longer range forecast call for some sun Friday and Saturday. The next chance of soaking rain rolls in Sunday into early next week.

Do you know what to do when the sirens sound for real? Thursday is a great day to get your action plan down. I’m betting on a more active tornado season than the 15 we saw last year in Minnesota. Here’s everything you wanted to know about severe weather awareness week in Minnesota.

About the blogger

Paul Huttner is chief meteorologist for Minnesota Public Radio. Huttner has worked TV and radio stations in Minneapolis, Tucson and Chicago. Paul is a graduate of Macalester College in St. Paul and holds a bachelor’s degree in geography with an emphasis in meteorology.